Personal laws must comply with fundamental rights: Arun Jaitley

NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi led government believes that “personal laws must comply with fundamental rights”, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said, defending the Centre's opposition to the practice of ‘triple talaq’ among Muslims.

“The government’s view is clear. Personal laws have to be constitutionally compliant, and the institution of triple talaq, therefore, will have to be judged on the yardstick of equality and the right to live with dignity,” Jaitley wrote in a signed article on Sunday.

Uniform civil code debate can go on: Jaitley
“Governments in the past have shied from taking a categorical stand that personal laws must comply with Fundamental Rights. The present government has taken a clear position,” he said.

The finance minister also sought to differentiate triple talaq from the larger issue of Uniform Civil Code. “As of today, the issue before the Supreme Court is only with regard to the constitutional validity of triple talaq,” he wrote.

Hearing petitions on the validity of triple talaq and polygamy in the Muslim community, a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India TS Thakur had last month asked the government to convey its stand on the issue.

The next hearing is slated for October 18. “On more than one occasion, the Supreme Court has enquired from the government its stand on the issue,” Jaitley wrote on Sunday.

“Governments have repeatedly told both the court and Parliament that personal laws are ordinarily amended after detailed consultations with affected stakeholders.”

Civil code debate
He said the law commission’s exercise on Uniform Civil Code was an “academic exercise” on whether personal laws should be constitutionally compliant as a continuation of the debate on this issue.

“The academic debate with regard to the Uniform Civil Code can go on before the law commission. The question to be answered is that assuming that each community has its separate personal law, should not those personal laws be constitutionally compliant?” Jaitley said.

“Irrespective of whether the Uniform Civil Code is today possible or otherwise, a pertinent question arises with regard to reforms within the personal laws of various communities,” he wrote.

“Reforming the personal laws, even if there is no uniformity, is an ongoing process.” An eminent lawyer himself, Jaitley wrote, “With passage of time several provisions became obsolete, archaic and even got rusted. Governments, legislatures and communities have to respond to the need for a change.”